Smoking Guns

Tehran two-step

Perhaps the biggest story this week (it all depends how you measure these things) is that Iran has agreed to open itself up to nuclear inspection and promises – get this – “total transparency”.

You can almost hear the sighs of relief echoing in the ozone hole.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had given Iran until 31 October to ‘fess up, and provide evidence that it was not building itself a bomb.

Iran has agreed to sign an additional protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and quit, for the moment, enriching uranium. UN inspectors will do the groundwork.

Sound familiar?

The IAEA called the move “an encouraging sign”. As one might expect, Iran chose to announce the news surrounded by three visiting foreign ministers from European Union countries, who had been pleading with their hosts to do the right thing.

There was a cautious response from the United States. The offer, it said, if true, was “a positive step”.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, said Jack Straw, Britain’s foreign secretary – though not quite in those words.

French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin was more upbeat. “This is a very important day,” he said. “We were facing a major issue. Proliferation is a major challenge to the world, and today we found a solution to the pending issue.”

Here’s the deal: don’t add any nuclear weapons to your arsenal, and we [the EU] will help you [Iran] build a nuclear energy programme. “We voluntarily chose to do it,” said Hassan Rohani, head of Iran’s national security council, of the decision to suspend uranium enrichment, “which means it could last for one day or one year, it depends on us.”

The decision to cooperate is seen as a victory for reformist President Mohammad Khatami. In the words of the BBC, the reformers “can now argue that they have saved the Islamic Republic from possible United Nations sanctions and possible unilateral action by the US.”

The hardliners, fans of confrontation with the US, are left to fight another day.

Dr. Evil’s reprieve

While we’re on the subject... let’s take a quick glance at North Korea.

“Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il has been missing in action over the last month and a half. But this week, you’ll be disappointed to hear, he re-emerged decked out in his trademark Dr. Evil attire, reputedly considered the height of fashion by style-conscious Londoners.

Kim popped up at a military-run farm (yes, you read right). As he inspected the animals and weaponry, his country tested a missile off the east coast (where, the Diary presumes, all the North Korean intellectuals discuss the food shortage in Ivy League accents).

Meanwhile, in Beijing, President George W. Bush was munching on some prawn crackers with Hu Jintao. In between nibbles, Bush offered an important, if vague, concession to North Korea.

The Prez said that if the Stalinist state freezes and dismantles its nuclear weapons programme, America will offer a five-nation commitment not to invade the country.

Got that?

In other words, North Korea will not be invaded by China, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States – something it was probably not expecting anyway.

Still, it’s an important shift. Bush won’t sign any non-aggression treaties with the “axis-of-evil” member, but, in his words, “there are other ways we can look at it”.

A five-nation commitment not to invade and liberate is one of those other ways. “We’re all willing to sign some sort of document, not a treaty, that says ‘we won’t attack you’,” Bush said on his way to Australia.

North Korea’s response was to call Bush’s offer “laughable”.

No-one, however, is laughing.

(See The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea’s Prison Camps a new report issued by the US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK))

Syrian vaults

Quickly over to Syria, possible member of the new, extended “axis of evil”.

A US treasury delegation charged this week that $3 billion belonging to the government of Saddam Hussein is being held in Syrian banks.

The suspicion is that the money is being used to fund attacks on US forces in Iraq.

The Syrians won’t say who has access to the accounts. By way of a UN resolution, all assets of the Saddam regime are supposed to be handed over to the American-administered Fund for Development in Iraq.

Watch this space.

Nato no-nos

“America and Europe are not coming closer; they grow farther from each other day by day.”

So wrote André Kaspi, professor of US history at the Sorbonne, in the International Herald Tribune this week.

And boy, ain’t that the truth.

The transatlantic divide opened up again these last few days, in typically bizarre fashion. An “extraordinary meeting” (IHT) took place Monday between Nato allies, in which EU members “went to great pains” (Jamie Shea, Nato spokesman) to reassure the US that European defence plans were not a “threat to Nato’s future”, as US diplomat Nick Burns had called them.

This, of course, is a huge issue. Take, for example, the fence-straddling position of Tony Blair and the British government. Britain, shoulder-to-shoulder with its American allies, is slowly warming to the idea of greater European cooperation on military matters, though it differs greatly from Jacques Chirac’s vision of Europe building a Euromilitary that somehow rivals the US (we’ve been over this before), and is nervous about plans to build a European planning and operational headquarters that would clash with the existing Nato structure.

Blair said this week that he wants the EU constitution to clearly establish Nato’s pre-eminence. “Let me make one thing very clear to you,” he said, “I will never put at risk Nato.” However, he added, Europe must have the ability to act independently “where America for one reason or another doesn’t want to be involved.”

But what exactly does “for one reason or another” mean? For example, what if the EU decided to intervene on the Israel-Palestine situation?

There’s a lot to sort out here. For the time being, the US has a foothold in Europe. But, in case you hadn’t noticed, its attention is shifting to other regions. Europe is so yesterday, and Nato is a construct of a defunct cold war. The grounds are inevitably shifting.

“The worst situation we could be in, frankly,” one senior diplomat told the BBC, “would be if either side said we don’t want to talk about this. So don’t belittle the ability of talk to be a therapy in its own way.”

Did somebody say divorce?

Up in smoke

Question: Is there anything the French won’t strike over?

Answer: Mais non!

A month or two ago, the Diary couldn’t help chortling at the nationwide strike by state-funded street artists (stilt walkers, jugglers, mime artists, buskers) that brought the French Republic to a standstill – a position Washington accuses France of adopting for its foreign policy.

This week, it was the turn of the tobacconists. As anyone who has spent more than three minutes in a French café will testify, the French are among the world’s most prolific smokers. A Gaullist without a Gauloises is like a Parisian ‘madame’ without a chien – highly irregular.

Many years ago now, the French separated Church and State. The issue is still a hot one – the nation is currently debating the issue of headscarves in public institutions, oui ou non?

But now, France is trying to separate Cigarettes and State, and its citizens are not happy.

France has 34,000 tobacconists, just about enough to satisfy the nation’s insatiable appetite for the golden leaf. As of this Monday, cigarette prices in France leap 20%. It’s the third price-hike of fags in a year.

The only thing the French don’t like to do in the public realm is health. When it comes to cigarettes, French citizens want the state to mind its own business (and there’s a lot of that to be getting on with).

Now, the government claims it has its citizens’ interest at heart (and lung) – saving 10,000 deaths a year. But the citizens are too smart to fall for that old chestnut. They claim the government is trying to fill its rapidly depleting coffers. This is all about the state finances (otherwise known as Chirac’s pockets).

Nine out of ten cigarette-peddlers closed shop for the day. Sixty demonstrations peppered the nation.

Of course, French tobacconists have a monopoly on cigarette sales, and do very well merci beaucoup.

Piped Rene Le Pape of the Confederation of Tobacco Sellers, “The government says loud and clear that it wants the day to come when there is not a single smoker left in France.”

That’ll be the day hell freezes over.

The government responded by offering tobacconists a €120 million aid package.

Only in France.

Not enough, say the tobacconists.

Time for the Sixth Republic?

(Various sources, including BBC Online)

Quotes of the week

“Islam is fully compatible with liberty and tolerance and progress.”
President George W. Bush

“I never thought the Europeans would be against me. I can’t understand them. I’m glad that Chirac at least understands. I would like to thank him publicly.”
Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad.
[After last week’s speech which received a standing ovation from Muslim leaders at the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), in which Mahathir said “The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million, but today the Jews rule the world by proxy: they get others to fight and die for them ... 1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews”, the Malaysian prime minister was routinely condemned for his comments. Following a few days hesitation, President Bush, who counts Mahathir among his allies, called the speech “wrong and divisive” and that it “stands squarely against what I believe in.” However, French President Jacques Chirac, while voicing his “disapproval” in a letter to Mahathir, blocked an EU declaration condemning the comments, a move the New York Times called “inexcusable nonchalance”. Mahathir said in an interview with the Bangkok Post that “The reaction of the world shows that they [Jews] do control the world.” “The Muslims,” he added, “we are pictured as terrorists, unreasonable people, unable to administer our countries, unable to develop our countries.”]

“I tell the American people: God willing, we will continue to fight you. We will continue the martyrdom operations inside and outside the United States until you end your injustice, abandon your stupidity. We maintain our right to reply, at the appropriate time and place, to all the states that are taking part in this unjust war, particularly Britain, Spain, Australia, Poland, Japan, and Italy.”
A voice purported to be that of Osama bin Laden, broadcast by al-Jazeera on Saturday.

“It was a sign of confidence and friendship which I found particularly touching, so I just limited myself, at his request, to making the comments I was asked to make in Germany’s name. It so happened that his comments were identical to those that France wanted to make anyway.”
French President Jacques Chirac on representing Germany at the request of Chancellor Schröder on the final day of this week’s EU summit.

Contact the Diary Editor: Dominic.Hilton@openDemocracy.net